Intel extends business plan competition

LONDON — Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel Corp., has launched the 2010 Intel Challenge, a competition for university students who are asked to submit business plans for the chance to win $150,000. Otellini launched the competition during a speech at the World Congress on IT in Amsterdam.

The entrepreneurship challenge is already an annual event and has been running since 2004. The finals take place at University of California Berkeley in November. The competition currently reaches Europe, Asia, North America and South America. For 2010, the competition will be expanded in Europe with new partner institutions and participants from France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Information on the Intel Challenge can be found at www.intel.com/education/highered/entrepreneur

"Innovation results from combining people who have good ideas with investment. These are the guiding forces that lead to ideas which spawn new businesses that create new jobs, and ultimately lead to wealth creation and higher standards of living," said Otellini, in a statement.

Business plans will be judged on their potential for positive societal impact and return for investors through the commercialization of technologies in areas such as semiconductors, mobile and wireless, nanotechnology and life sciences.

"In the next decade, another half billion people will enter the workforce, and we will need to create the conditions to generate meaningful jobs for them and for the existing workforce," said Otellini. "Intel has been in the business of delivering amazing innovations for more than four decades and we know that some of the best ideas are yet to come. The right investments today to create the innovators and industries of the future will put the world on the path toward economic growth."

Entries are drawn from a network of universities, including more than 150 colleges offering entrepreneurship classes led by professors trained by Intel through an innovation-focused curriculum. Participants will receive mentoring while they compete for $150,000 in prize money. Intel expects the annual competition will receive more than 10,000 business plan entries over the next 3 years.

Winners will compete in the Intel + Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge at the University of California in November. The winner will also be selected to attend Intel Capital's annual CEO summit.

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